As Florida’s school officials get ready to convert to a digital learning world, they worry about how to pay for it, what the state will require, and a potentially widening learning gap between those who have computers and those who don’t.

The Florida Legislature passed a law that all instructional materials will be only digital by the 2015-16 school year. Now state and district level educators are working through the realities of making that happen.

“This is a direction we believe to be a good one,” St. Johns County Superintendent Joe Joyner said of the digital concept. “We do have a major concern with the language in the law that says all instructional materials must be digital … and with the 2015 deadline.”

Lou Greco, who heads up the district’s instructional materials division, says a hybrid allowing some print and some digital would be “perfect.”

As it is, there’s confusion over whether only digital instructional material will be allowed.

Educators also would like to see a more gradual approach, one that gives time to work the bugs out of the new system.

“You have to have all the instructional materials, all, being in place by that time. I think that sort of approach lacks the foresight necessary on such a major initiative,” Joyner said. He expects the state’s school superintendents will be discussing the digital issue when they meet in Tallahassee this week.

Digital instruction offers not only reading material, but also interactive features including videos and other enhancements. St. Johns County has worked to get ready for the new demands providing infrastructure such as broadband, wiring, hardware and Internet access.

Digital divide

Unlike many other districts, St. Johns has had a chance to test out the digital concept, using Palencia Elementary School, which opened this year. At the kindergarten through fifth grade school, students are using iPads, with two students sharing one device.

Students don’t take the iPads home. To do homework, they take home library books and fill out reading logs and they take home math problems to work, Greco said.

But the new approach means children don’t have a textbook to take home. If they don’t have a computer or Internet access, they’re out of luck if they want to review what they’ve learned in the book.

“Without (the equipment and access), they literally won’t have access to the material. The rich kids … can, the poor kids will not,” said Greco. “That’s what I want them to answer in Tallahassee.“

Greco noted some families no longer have landlines and only use cellphones, another problem for Internet connection. And for families with more than one student, the problems of digital learning and computer access are increased.

“We have a license so the material is available 24/7, but you can’t access it if you don’t have the hardware or Internet,” Greco said. “The kids who need it the most are going to have the least access.”

Joyner agrees that’s a big problem.

“Equity is a big issue. … I think we’ve done a very, very good job over the last 10 years (with technology equity) on a school-by-school basis,” Joyner said. “The big digital divide has to do with once you get home and providing access at home.”

All children don’t come to school with the same level of technological abilities, he said. Some come ready to use computers having done so at home. Others may be using one for the first time.

That gap can increase as children go through school, Greco said. Their fluency of working on computers can make a difference, especially when it comes to testing, another area that the state is requiring go on computers.

Lessons learned

“Our experience at Palencia has taught us a lot, and that’s just implementing one school where we were able to pay significant attention. You can imagine doing thousands of schools without that attention,” Joyner said.

Greco calls the Palencia digital learning pilot program an opportunity.

“We’ve learned so much,” he told District School Board of St. Johns County members during a recent workshop. That included what not to do. Passwords, for instance, turned out to be a “huge problem. We pretty much fixed it, but it took way too long.” Among the good news items, only one device has been broken.

The iPads have worked out well for the kindergarten through second grade learning. However, a laptop may turn out to be what’s needed for third grade and up because of writing and testing requirements and the need for more memory.

And tablet digital devices, at least at the most basic level, won’t meet the needs of middle and high school students. For instance, for students with seven classes the basic device doesn’t have the memory to hold the entire contents of their course textbooks. Two to three chapters at a time for each class would be loaded.

But then you have another set of problems when it would come time to study for end-of-course exams, another state requirement, and students’ computers don’t have the capacity to store all the chapters they are being tested on.

Digital learning has everyone in a state of flux, including textbook publishers. One of the changes districts will face is going from owning a textbook to leasing it on a year-to-year basis with the only access electronically.

While some have talked of having students “Bring Your Own Device” or BYOD, as its known, St. Johns doesn’t that favor that approach. Greco said. Because nothing is standardized, there are a lot of inherent problems.

“Teachers are going to spend more time helping them access content than doing instruction. We’re not recommending BYOD,” he said.

Funding measures

“There’s been a lot of discussion especially on the Senate side about how much (this will cost) and what’s an appropriate number,” said Beth Sweeny, the district’s legislative liaison in Tallahassee.

Various numbers have been tossed around. Gov. Rick Scott has $100 million in his proposed budget for digital devices, upping server ability and Internet costs. Districts have sent in their cost estimates. St. Johns County is estimating an annual cost of $9.6 million for its needs. A figure of $450 million has been estimated by the state Department of Education. Now the Senate is calling for the DOE to come up with a real number doing an actual audit and not using self-reported numbers, Sweeny said.

A state task force on digital instruction just came out with its final report on the process, but when it came to where the money would come from, specifics were vague.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the ongoing and increasing cost going digital will mean.

Upgrading will be an annual cost as the multi-media instructional material continues to get “more and more intense,” Greco said. More broadband width, increasing Internet access, and hardware and software upgrades will all be needed.

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for
following agreed-upon rules of civility. Posts and
comments do not reflect the views of this site. Posts and comments are
automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some
comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules,
click the "Flag as offensive" link below the comment.

Is the District going to make up to date technology available to all students, not just the northern schools. At this point the any school south of Palencia has substandard technology in comparison to the golden schools!